We had the loveliest family day out yesterday at the Volks Weald festival and getting lost in the Maize maze at the hosting venue, Penshurst Place. I had never been to a car show before, nor to Penshurst Place so it was all a bit new to me and we were excited to discover a new place to explore.

I’m not a great lover of cars, my knowledge of them just about stops with the colour so I was prepared to be bored until we got to the maze but actually the Volks Weald show was  really good & definitely more than just a field of cars.

The grounds were lined with a rainbow gorgeous retro campers, beautiful classic beatles and super cool vintage scooters. I’ve come home dreaming of owning & restoring our very own VW Camper which we can go on adventures in as a family in the coming years.

The camper of my dreams!

There were also a lot of artisan stalls & food and drinks stands which my sister & I took great pleasure in wandering round.

This inflatable tavern was probably the showstopper when it came to the stands, what a cool idea for events! I think Sean has this high on his list for when we eventually get married (once he’s asked me that is!).

We had a lovely chat with Stephanie, the owner of ‘The Little Red Wagon Company’ who not only sells these gorgeous wooden wagons but made all of the dresses below in one week! They’re so well made and I love the patterns and bold prints. If they’d had her size, I’d have definitely picked one up for Florence in each of the designs.

We couldn’t resist making use of this ultra cool retro Coca Cola fridge!

There was live music playing while we ate our lunch on Hay bales and Florence hit the hay while taking a break from being in the carrier. 

And then it was time to find the Maize Maze! 

There are two routes for the Maize Maze – one that takes 15 minutes and one that takes an hour. Sean, of course, opted for the hour long route! We were given a map and a sheet to stamp the checkpoints in. It was good fun, though if you take a buggy be prepared to either leave it behind or pop baby in a carrier as the ground is very uneven!

And Florence even got a sticker for completing it!

We’ll definitely be returning to discover more of Penshurst Place this Summer as we didn’t get to see very much of it at all.

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I mentioned before we went away that I quite liked the idea of delving into some real Corfiot culture by taking a trip out of Acharavi and into Corfu Town. At a meeting with our Thomas Cook rep the day after we arrived we discovered that we could take a boat trip from Kassiopi (About a thirty minute drive from Kamari Apartments) into the Island’s “capital’. We would receive a guided tour of the Island’s coastal attractions by our Captain and then once we arrived we would have four hours to get in plenty of shopping and site seeing – this was a trip set to please us all.

We opted for the evening trip rather than the day trip meaning that we would be able to spend a day chilling out by the pool before heading out to explore once the heat of the day had passed.

Having visited Kassiopi a few days before, I was excited to get to return even if just for a short while, to see what it was like during the evening. It really is the most beautiful and picturesque little town. We boarded the Cosmic Cruiser which was waiting for us when we arrived at the harbor and originally took our seats inside. Why? I’ve no idea!? Once we realised that the only view we were going to have was the back of the captains head, we moved and took up our seats at the front of the boat.

The views were spectacular. Corfu is surprisingly close to the Albanian coast and so as we cruised through the Ocean Albania’s mountains were on our left and Corfu’s landscape on our right.

Our Captain was a great tour guide, pointing out some of Corfu’s main attractions as we passed them. “And on de riiiight”, “and on de leeeft”. We saw the mansion at which Charles and Camilla often stay with the Royal Family when they visit the island, the villa owned by the owner of Ferrari, part of the James Bond set of For your eyes only and many beautiful bays & beaches.

The best bit by far though, which I failed to get on camera as I was too excited, was seeing three dolphins leaping in and out of the water. I swam with dolphins when we were in Mexico and absolutely loved it, but seeing them in the wild was so lovely and so unexpected.

We arrived in Corfu town at around 6pm, and decided to turn left into the old town rather than right which would lead us to the new town. Never let it be said that Corfu Town is an easy place to navigate – we found ourselves wandering around it’s shop lined maze for quite some time before we could make head or tail of where we were. It is the perfect place for  sampling locally made produce and crafts and with Corfu’s lack of tourist markets, it’s great for those who love to haggle!

I picked up some Ouzo in a little speciality shop for Sean. Whenever we go abroad he likes to buy a bottle of the local alcohol to display as a memory of our travels and so I thought this would make the perfect gift for him. We also bought some other gifts while there including friendship bracelets for Libby’s friends.

Once  we were all shopped out we went on search of somewhere we could grab a bite before making our way back through the old town, taking in the magnificent buildings on the way back to the harbour. This wasn’t an easy task – a lot of the places that look like restaurants are actually just bars or sandwich shops. In our hunt, we entered a small little bistro, which from the outside looked lovely, however we left after five minutes without being greeted by anyone and being made to feel quite uncomfortable by a group of leering Greek men. Not nice! Anyway, we finally in a family run restaurant at the border of the ‘maze’ where we had a lovely yet seemingly expensive dinner. The difference in price compared to back in Acharavi was at least €20. The pizzas there were huge and very tasty.

The boat trip back to Kassiopi was beautiful. It was dark and the shorelines of both Corfu & Albania were lit up with what looked like dotted fairy lights. The skies were clear and the moon shone brightly leading us back to base.

I would thoroughly recommend this trip to anyone visiting the North of Corfu, we had such a lovely evening exploring the old town and immersing ourselves in the traditional Corfiot culture.

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